


My Bones

by Tamaha



Series: Star-Trek Short-Stories [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Halloween, M/M, Other, Pre-Relationship, Skeletons, pre-McKirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 01:08:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21090863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamaha/pseuds/Tamaha
Summary: Jim finds something in Bones‘ wardrobe. It disturbs him.





	My Bones

„My Ex took the whole planet in the divorce. All I got left are my bones!” said the grumpy drunk person who offered Jim a sip from his flask. It didn’t take long and Jim had him nicknamed with Bones.

“Why?”, had said grump asked suspiciously later when he was sober again but still grumpy.

Jim shrugged, “Because all you got left are your bones?”

Newly named Bones let out a long suffering sigh and rolled his eyes harder than Jim had ever seen a man do before. Maybe Grumpy was a more fitting name? But he accepted his fate as Bones.

Months later, after a night out together Jim crashed at Bones Dorm afterwards.

Jim slowly awoke in Bones’ Dorm room. Apparently Bones had shoved him on his roommates bed the night before. Bones himself was still snoring heavy. The bliss of sleep!

He shortly wondered where said roommate of Bones’ had been. Jim hadn’t seen him in some time. Probably better this way. Bones always complained about him.

Jim got up for a glass of water, maybe also to brush his teeth, he had an awful taste in his mouth. When he was a bit more awake he noticed the state of his shirt and decided he needed a fresh one. His actual shirt had some suspicious spots he didn‘t wanted to find out more about.

So he went straight to Bones wardrobe, not even bothering to ask for permission, he was sleeping like a corpse anyway!

Jim opened the wardrobe on Bones side of the room.

He looked inside for about a second before a scream escaped his mouth and he banged the door shut again.

He nearly had pissed himself. And in retrospective his scream might have sounded like that of a little girl.

But right now he was in shock. He could hear his heartbeat in ears pounding.

When he had calmed down for five minutes he dared to reopen the wardrobe. Slowly, as not to disturb what was inside, he peeked inside as the door was just slightly ajar.

He closed the door again, this time without banging it and without a scream. But he still felt like almost pissing himself.

Jim looked at the still sleeping Bones. How could he sleep through all this?

He sat on the bed he had just slept in. Jim blinked. He really didn‘t know the last time he had seen Bones roommate! He looked around for any evidence that he had been here lately. But didn‘t find anything. No dirty clothes, not padds for class.

Jim panicked.

He grabbed his jacket and his comm. Then he was out of the dorm.

He was halfway across campus to his own dorms when he could progress what he had just seen.

A skeleton.

In the wardrobe.

There was a freaking skeleton in the wardrobe!

As soon as he was back at his he grabbed a padd and opened up every kind of social media that was used by most of the cadets.

Instagram - Facebook - twitter - tumblr

Everywhere he searched for H. J. Ashton, Age 19, Starfleet Cadet.

Every account Jim found had been inactive for two weeks.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuc-

His comm beeped. It was Bones.

_**Bones:** Where are you?_

_**Jim:** At my dorm._

_**Bones:** Ya alright?_

_**Jim:** Sure, just need some sleep away from your snoring._

_**Bones:** HAha! How funny._

Then Jim laid down to order his thoughts. He was far away from sleeping.

His own roommate was absent too, but Jim could see his things strewn across the room that indicated that he had been around within the last twenty-four hours!

This might have been just one big coincident... 

Jim shuddered. Then there would still be a skeleton in Bones wardrobe!

Later that day Jim went to the Starfleet office in charge for personnel administration to find out more about him but they simply refused to give out any personal data.

The following days Jim tried to find any classmates and professors of Ashton. Nobody knew where he went to, apparently he was even more social uninvolved than Bones.

So basically the perfect murder victim, somebody nobody would miss when gone.

_**Bones:** Meet at lunch?_

_**Bones:** Library 3pm? Physics kills me…_

_**Bones:** 8pm at my place for bourbon?_

_**Bones:** Where are you?_

Jim had dodged Bones and any meetings with him so far. 

He couldn’t pretend like he was cool with a potential murderer.

So far a week had passed and they had only seen each other in mandatory classes.

“You avoiding me?”, Bones asked grumpier than usual when they met accidently on the way to class. Or had Bones waited for him?

“No, just busy.”, said Jim and fled into another corridor, knowing that Bones had to go the other way.

That afternoon Jim’s padd beeped.

At that tone alone Jim felt relief flood through him.

Jim had programmed it with one special tune should Ashton reactive his accounts. He quickly checked his latest status update from his Starfleet-Account:

OMG, three weeks with relatives and I am ready to launch into space!

In a little prayer Jim thanked whoever was above that his kinda best friend hasn’t murdered his roommate.

Jim rushed to Bones dorm as soon as he was free from class. He knocked three times and it was the missing roommate who was opening.

„Ashton!“ Jim exclaimed jovial and almost went for a hug but could restrain himself. 

Ashton looked at Jim more than sceptical and just slightly turned to Bones, who was also in the room.

„What‘s wrong with your boyfriend?“ Ashton teased Bones.

„Probably pregnant, considering his mood-swings lately!“, Bones countered being suspicious about Jim’s suddenly good mood after a week of avoidance. Jim smiled broadly at the roommates.

Ashton liked to tease with ridiculous assumptions and Bones learned to counter with even more ridiculous ones. He didn‘t bother what others thought of him by now and it irritated Ashton as fuck, which was satisfying in itself.

Then Ashton just muttered an _ Idiots _ and was out of the dorm. Jim closed the door behind him after he stepped inside himself.

„What do you want? I have plenty of assignments to do!“ Bones got defensiv. He didn‘t like that Jim avoided him for a week. He was hurt.

„I am sorry that I avoided you for a week!“ Jim started, which makes Bones huff.

„So you admit that you were avoiding me!“

„To my defense I thought you might have murdered your roommate!“

„Murdered my ...? What the hell? Why should you think that! Not that he didn’t deserve this, still: What the hell??“ Bones talked himself into rage and his head had started to get red. He stood with crossed arms close to his wardrobe. Jim just walked up to him and wordless opened said wardrobe.

Both men looked inside.

There he was. Or she. Jim couldn’t tell. A skeleton.

„Who is this?“ Jim asked. 

„Who? Freddie?“ Bones asked perplex, as if a skeleton in your wardroom was absolutely normal.

„Freddie?“ Jim closed his eyes for a moment. So the skeleton used to be a Freddie.

„I already told you everything about Freddie! When we first met in the shuttle? That‘s why you are calling me Bones, for god‘s sake!“

„You said nothing about a skeleton! Just that ‚You've got nothing left but your Bones‘ after the divorce!“

They stared at each other.

„Okay, one of us was too drunk to remember this correctly“ Bones mused.

„Yeah, and considering your brain was rattled with aviophobia and space disease and you were already drunk when you boarded I bet it is you who remember this incorrectly!“ Jim concluded.

Bones had to admit he wasn‘t himself that day.

„My father used to have him, and his father before him“ Bones started, then he paused to take Freddie out of the wardrobe. The skeleton‘s bones where joint with a fine wire. He draped him on a chair by the table.

„Freddie is a medical skeleton. He was in my father‘s study while I grew up. I don‘t know his name before he died, but for us he was Freddie ever since. I learned the names of every bone with him.“

Bones had a font smile while remembering his childhood with the skeleton.

„Every Halloween he sat on our front porch, making the Kids shriek in excitement. They thought of course it would be a fake.“

„Jocelyn was freaked out by this too as well, so I was not allowed to put him up in my study. She said it would frighten our daughter. Well, we will never know for sure.“ Joanna was still a toddler, too young to understand what a skeleton was. „And Ashton also insisted on him staying in the wardrobe!“

By now Bones and Jim were sitting at the table as well, Bones had opened a bourbon and poured them some drinks. „So how long...?“ Jim asked vaguely, nodding toward Freddie.

„He died about two hundred years ago. My family wasn‘t the first to have him.“

Jim was relieved by that. No recent murder or death.

Two hour later they were still sitting with Freddie at the table. They were several drinks in.

Jim looked uncomfortable between Bones and Freddie.

They also had started with poker. „His poker face is too good!“, Jim groused as he raised by two pretzels. Bones chuckled at him and raised by three.

Freddie sat there with his own cards in his skeleton hands.

The door opened and Ashton came in. Stopped in his tracks as he stared at the scene before him. 

„Ashton!“, Jim called out with a smile. „Wanna join?“

Ashton turned around and left without another word. Bones was pleased. Maybe his roommate finally filed for a different dorm.


End file.
